Monday, September 27, 2010

Be It Ever So Humble…

My son and I were talking today about humility. He’s gotten very involved in kickboxing, and he was talking about how important it was for participants to approach the sport and sparring with a humble attitude. When they do that, they learn faster and people respond to them better.

That has a surprising corollary with writing, oddly enough. A humble attitude and a willingness to admit to what you don't know will go a long way toward easing a writer's journey. Conversely, it can be annoying when new writers act as if they will do it differently than all those who came before them (as if all those who came before them did it that way simply because they didn't know any better or enjoyed being inefficient), that they won’t take ten years to get published, or that their manuscript won’t need round after round of revisions. Or whatever. It is highly, highly annoying.

But...

I don’t think you can teach someone else to be humble by telling them about it. They have to run smack into it themselves. We all have to crash headlong into our own humility, not be urged to it by well-meaning outsiders. It’s a lot like democracy; you can’t import it—it has to grow organically from the organism itself—not be transplanted. ☺

Humility is like that. In fact, most of Life’s—not to mention, writing’s—really important lessons are like that. You have to run into them full tilt so that they knock you on your @ss and WAKE YOU UP to the fact that something is not working.

Just like our characters don’t wake up one day and decide, Hey, I need to change who I am or turn my life around, most people don’t wake up one day and realize all our writing is dreck.

That’s where that long string of rejections comes into play. It weeds out those who aren’t willing to adapt and try new things. Because that is what failing repeatedly forces us to do—what all failure and rejection forces us to do—stretch and grow and learn to come at problems from an entirely new angle. Or learn a new skill so we can try again.

6 comments:

Katy Cooper said...

This is brilliant.

Mel said...

I met my own form of humility this weekend at a writers retreat. Not sure what I expected going in, but it sure eliminated all kinds of confidence I went in with. It was harder than hard. Hard in way that made me want to give up writing altogether. But that's the humbling part of the process I suppose.
The weird thing was that I thought I was humble to begin with. Also I met so many people who were on cloud nine and unaffected by the critiques. I'm not big on being jealous of others, but I have to say I envy their unwavering security.

R.L. LaFevers said...

Oo. Hate that, Mel! I, too, envy people with boat loads of self confidence. Having said that, I also think one has to be very, VERY protective of one's work. Sometimes critiques say more about the critiquer and the rules they've internalized that any actual reflection of the work involved. Sorry it was so tough!

Thanks, Katy! I needed a brilliant bone today. :-)

Mel said...

Well thanks for that Robin : )
I think that you are right. I will be very careful in the future.
On the bright side, I met some other really lovely gals from the SB area who LOVE your work. We gushed about your books and fancy the idea of one day taking a workshop from you!

R.L. LaFevers said...

Wow, how cool is that? And it's so funny you should mention me teaching a workshop...I've been toying with the idea of offering a couple of online workshops. I love the online format because that way people have the time to wrestle and apply the information.

Mel said...

That's great news! Just keep us informed and I'll tell my pals.